Cataclysm

[Ingmar]

It was bugged and healing everyone around instead of just one target, I think.

[Sjofn]

Mark me down as one of the "most of these so-called pointless changes actually had to happen" true believers. I never played ret for real so I can't say much about that, but the other specs/classes I've played, any issues I have are more "this is sort of buggy" rather than "my class is different." Hell, for some of them (holy paladin cough cough) I'm more "Woo hoo! My class is different!"

Which changes had to happen to items that were slowly sinking the ship? To me it seems like they are trying to revert the game away from more options to less because it was getting unweildy, and the old world was too boring for leveling.

Well, as a tank, I am really happy they dropped defense.    Hell, it made it so some of my dps plate that I never use because I hate DPSing as a DK can actually replace some of my tank crap I never got a goddamn drop for (my boots are STILL from fuckin' Ulduar, for God's sake).

Also, people keep bitching about mudflation, and Cataclysm is obviously going to carry on that tradition, but given the avoidance and crit chance and whatever else people were hitting at the end here in WotLK, that seemed pretty unsustainable to me as well. I actually hope that in the NEXT expansion, they chill out a little on the HP/damage totals next.

[kildorn]

It was bugged and healing everyone around instead of just one target, I think.

This. Atonement was a splash heal around your smite target, which was hilariously overpowered.

[Lantyssa]

It's weird, but it's nice. She doesn't really remember much about me either, and it's nice to have something to do together. It's enough to keep me subbed for as long as she remains interested, no matter how badly they screw things up.

I had a friend up in Edmonton get into a terrible wreck and, last I heard, didn't recover much of anything.  Her boyfriend prior to it was a complete stranger but trying to help her reorient to the world, and still trying to do everything he could for her even though it effectively turned them into nothing more than friends.  Probably the nicest guy I've ever met.

Good on you for helping as you can, WUA.

[K9]

Can anyone tell me the Mastery Rating <=> Mastery ratio please? I think I'll have a go at reforging tomorrow, and mastery seems like the fun stat to have right now.

[Ingmar]

One nice change I discovered last night, heirloom weapons will accept runeforges now.

[Merusk]

Can anyone tell me the Mastery Rating <=> Mastery ratio please? I think I'll have a go at reforging tomorrow, and mastery seems like the fun stat to have right now.

I can't tell you the ratio, but some classes have stats that are just hilariously overstacked so it shouldn't be too hard to figure out which one to alter.  My priest has 20% hit after turning 5% of it into mastery because of the spirit -> hit talent SPs get.

[WindupAtheist]

I had a friend up in Edmonton get into a terrible wreck and, last I heard, didn't recover much of anything.  Her boyfriend prior to it was a complete stranger but trying to help her reorient to the world, and still trying to do everything he could for her even though it effectively turned them into nothing more than friends.  Probably the nicest guy I've ever met.

Good on you for helping as you can, WUA.

The amnesia was just the climax to a year and a half of lung cancer and associated problems, so I'm philosophical about the whole thing. Her being alive, back to work, and doing well is such an astronomical longshot in itself (we're talking low single-digit percentage here) that I just can't sweat details like having to make friends with her all over again.

And on the bright side, I now have an unassailable reason to keep playing even if the game pisses me off, and thus an ironclad license to rant about it!

 

[Bzalthek]

Your ulterior motives are peeking through!

[Mattemeo]

...and thus an ironclad license to rant about it!

 

Like you ever needed a reason before!

[Ingmar]

Can anyone tell me the Mastery Rating <=> Mastery ratio please? I think I'll have a go at reforging tomorrow, and mastery seems like the fun stat to have right now.

I can't tell you the ratio, but some classes have stats that are just hilariously overstacked so it shouldn't be too hard to figure out which one to alter.  My priest has 20% hit after turning 5% of it into mastery because of the spirit -> hit talent SPs get.

My moonkin was at 29%, I reforged every single piece of spirit and hit gear I had and still landed at 19%. 

[SurfD]

Can anyone tell me the Mastery Rating <=> Mastery ratio please? I think I'll have a go at reforging tomorrow, and mastery seems like the fun stat to have right now.

I can't tell you the ratio, but some classes have stats that are just hilariously overstacked so it shouldn't be too hard to figure out which one to alter.  My priest has 20% hit after turning 5% of it into mastery because of the spirit -> hit talent SPs get.

My moonkin was at 29%, I reforged every single piece of spirit and hit gear I had and still landed at 19%. 

Why the hell does your moonkin have so much spirit gear?  Most of that spirit (unless it is on Tier Pieces) should be haste or crit instead.  Unless all you ever got was spirit pieces i suppose.

[Simond]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2012-Tier-11-Models-Class-Balance-Missing-Enchants-Blue-Posts

Lots of hotfixes, planned changes and Mage-Skeletor armour.

[kildorn]

Can anyone tell me the Mastery Rating <=> Mastery ratio please? I think I'll have a go at reforging tomorrow, and mastery seems like the fun stat to have right now.

I can't tell you the ratio, but some classes have stats that are just hilariously overstacked so it shouldn't be too hard to figure out which one to alter.  My priest has 20% hit after turning 5% of it into mastery because of the spirit -> hit talent SPs get.

My moonkin was at 29%, I reforged every single piece of spirit and hit gear I had and still landed at 19%.  

Why the hell does your moonkin have so much spirit gear?  Most of that spirit (unless it is on Tier Pieces) should be haste or crit instead.  Unless all you ever got was spirit pieces i suppose.

iirc, he was a tree pre-patch.

edit: that priest set is just .. what. Is everyone going to get splashed every time we move? Is the whole idea to be a fire resist set? And why is the difference between the male and female sets that the women just decided they didn't like the rest of the shirt?

[Fordel]

Spirit leather is incredibly common, it is not surprising pve moonkins could be drowning in it.

[Arrrgh]

Is it that hard to find an armor artist? Can't you post an ad for "Armor Artist", demand samples, and then pick someone who has a clue? Given the time between releases of tiers would you need more than one? Do they not make enough that they can hire one person with talent?

If the above is asking too much why not let people copy the look of their old armor onto their new armor? Aion does it, GW2 is going to do it.

[Mattemeo]

They're either entirely clueless or simply happy to endlessly aesthetically troll their playerbase. The last year or so suggests the new guy on the armour team is almost certainly colourblind for a start. And they know it.

So yeah, until /shoulderpads becomes an toggleable option, I'm going to side with the latter. They just keep getting worse.

[Polysorbate80]

Mixed feelings about the mount speed change.  It's good that they're allowing people to buy it, BUT:  I'm one sinister squashling drop from the violet proto-drake, and with the changes to holiday event boss mobs this is the year I'm finally certain to get it.  And now it won't count and I'll still have to shell out the cash 

Tanked my first dungeon last night, a non-heroic to get used to the changes.  Not a chance in hell of keeping aggro on a pack of mobs with the idiots going full retard on the DPS.  Single target I had some trouble as well, but since the morons were starting DPS before I even hit some of the mobs, I can only blame them.  Fortunately it WAS a non-heroic, so it didn't matter.

Otherwise, I haven't noticed anything being more difficult, other than soloing Chillmaw.  I've long since stopped using anything other than judgement of light and sacred shield to heal while burning him down, but I wound up using bubble and LoH both.  He was easier when I switched from seal of truth to the new whatever-it's-called seal of "cover-your-ass", but still a lot rougher.  Other than him, I didn't feel any real changes tanking multiple mobs.

I'm still having some trouble figuring out what's worthwhile in the tanking tree, and I'm going to wind up respeccing at least a third time.  First time I just threw it all into the prot tree to play with the talents.  Second time I dropped some fluff and moved points into the ret tree for extended range judgement (since the ranged taunt doesn't do any damage now) and the Crusader Strike damage buff, but I've still got things I'm not sure I need.  Particularly the consecration mana-reducer; I'm swimming in mana I've got no way to dump right now.  

Now, playing around with the wife's holy paladin--I just couldn't unlearn my Flash of Light spam habit.  Had to move the button and put Holy light in its place and the new big heal where Holy Light was.  I also keep forgetting to even use her holy power-based heal.  Going to be a while before I drag her through any heroics...

[Lantyssa]

In regards to Warlock pets being renamed:

For those of you who like your new pet names, we’re working on a feature for a future patch that will allow you to refresh your summons and essentially generate a random pet name without having to level a new warlock.

Yay!  It's only taken five years.

[Mattemeo]

Better yet, why don't they finally just let Warlocks choose their own names for the pets.

Yes, yes, I'm fully aware of the whole 'to control a demon, first you must know its true name' issue; who's to say the demons I enslaved aren't called Ritalin, Blue Meany, Joizy Goil and Weed Whacker?

[Paelos]

I am 100% against the idea of dumbasses naming demons. 100%.

[Ironwood]

Tree of Life.

What The Hell.

 

[lesion]

Lots of hotfixes, planned changes and Mage-Skeletor armour.

[Ingmar]

I wasn't a tree, just every piece of gear I ever got had spirit on it for the most part, outside of some accessory type pieces and my weapon and a couple of the T9 set pieces. Almost all the things that didn't have spirit had hit though.  

I do still have a couple hit enchants to ditch, that should get me down to normal.

[WindupAtheist]

I need to log back in later and see if there's a way to change the whole...

Derpy doo! Push Exorcism now!

...thing in the middle of the screen with the glowing icons and the giant parentheses everytime Art of War procs and all that fucking bullshit. It all just screams YES, YES WE ARE CATERING TO RETARDS. LITERAL RETARDS. PUSH BUTTON TO DO DAMAGE.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Actually that change is because one of the most popular addons is power auras, which did exactly the same thing although it was much more customizable. It's an addon that was absolutely necessary for me when playing a mage or fury warr because my eyes simply were not on my buff bar so having something pop up in the middle of the screen is necessary.

[Ingmar]

Yeah they should probably find something in between the way it was before (is art of war procced? try to find the icon in the giant mass of stuff up in the buff icon area) and the super parentheses of doom. For revenge it just lights up the icon on the bar, which isn't bad but it still means looking at the fringes of the screen.

EDIT:

GC's class balance post updated:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?sid=1&topicId=27187856197&pageNo=1#1

[Simond]

Tree of Life.

What The Hell.

 

Minor glyph is going in for the old model.

[Ingmar]

On demon names, I always kind of felt like the names you had no control over gave them a little more specific personality in a way. It isn't a pet, it is something that would just as soon eat you if you weren't forcing it to your will or whatever, and it certainly won't stand for being called Scruffles.

[Morfiend]

Actually that change is because one of the most popular addons is power auras, which did exactly the same thing although it was much more customizable. It's an addon that was absolutely necessary for me when playing a mage or fury warr because my eyes simply were not on my buff bar so having something pop up in the middle of the screen is necessary.

I wish they had put in more of the functionality of Power Auras. As it stands right now, anyone who used power auras is just going to turn off the in game "spell alerts" as they are called, and keep using power auras.

I think it could be misleading because if you know what you are doing as Ret, you dont want to cast exorcism instantly every time it procs. It could be as many as 4 GCD later.

[caladein]

Tree of Life.

What The Hell.

 

Afro Form =

[ezrast]

Yeah they should probably find something in between the way it was before (is art of war procced? try to find the icon in the giant mass of stuff up in the buff icon area) and the super parentheses of doom.

I always just used MSBT to announce my procs. On my mage I actually found myself just looking for the buff icon most of the time (not the stock buff UI, of course) but it worked well for my shaman when I went enh.

[kildorn]

I need to log back in later and see if there's a way to change the whole...

Derpy doo! Push Exorcism now!

...thing in the middle of the screen with the glowing icons and the giant parentheses everytime Art of War procs and all that fucking bullshit. It all just screams YES, YES WE ARE CATERING TO RETARDS. LITERAL RETARDS. PUSH BUTTON TO DO DAMAGE.

Dude? It was added because it was the single best power user mod to ever exist (to the point that people kept using a mod that was NEVER updated for the patch, and a bitch to configure properly)

Power Auras vs Default UI: massive gameplay difference.

[Lt.Dan]

On demon names, I always kind of felt like the names you had no control over gave them a little more specific personality in a way. It isn't a pet, it is something that would just as soon eat you if you weren't forcing it to your will or whatever, and it certainly won't stand for being called Scruffles.

That would be an awesome implementation.  Give your pet a crappy name and it aggros you!

[Merusk]

On demon names, I always kind of felt like the names you had no control over gave them a little more specific personality in a way. It isn't a pet, it is something that would just as soon eat you if you weren't forcing it to your will or whatever, and it certainly won't stand for being called Scruffles.

That would be an awesome implementation.  Give your pet a crappy name and it aggros you!

I would send money without subbing just to see that feature implemented.